mirk wrote:Mind if I poke my head in as a 21 year old soon-to-be grad?

I've been meeting up with (usually older) owners and managers of companies that work in fields that will be relevant to my post-grad interests (offering to buy them lunch usually works). My reasoning is that once I can get them to start ranting, I can learn a lot about their career paths, and accomplishments/failures. However, as I see with zippy, they're very well versed in spin and can be very convincing about their beliefs, especially when you're there specifically to learn from them. So I agree, to an extent, that my generation, including me, have slightly underdeveloped BS meters. The nice thing about talking to many of them is that they often contradict each other, and bash other firms (including ones I had just talked to a few weeks prior, which is pretty funny at times), that way I can sort out for myself what I think is right. The difference between those who are duped and those who aren't is whether or not they go out and verify the claims of others.

As for the innovation aspect, I had one boss at a co-op job who would pick apart every single decision I made, which was somewhat frustrating at the time, but really helped me learn to justify my methods and make good decisions. However it also didn't work the other way, if I suggested using a different and uncommonly used material for something, for example, and had properly researched and justified the decision, it would often still get shot down without an explanation.

When deciding whether to stick with what works, or push forward in the hope of better solutions, I don't think that problem will ever be solved. Isn't that the difference between political parties in most countries? viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27576

Just a quick question, did you factor in cost of failure and or production familiarity on your proposal for the new material?

We were having trouble with the material we were using, particularly with molding it to the shape we wanted it. I found one with very similar properties, that I had seen molded well in a few applications, and I though it might be applicable in this situation and solve our problem although I hadn't seen it in this specific application before. As an intern, I obviously don't claim to understand all of the cost and other restrictions, my issue with the situation was that it was dismissed so quickly and without explanation. I would have really liked to understand why it wouldn't work for that application, if that was the case.

Mr-914 wrote:As for age and wisdom, I wish I had known how incompetent adults are when I was 20. That goes for adults of all ages.

I wish I had that kind of sentiment. You guys make me really sad as I approach 40 this year. When I was 20 I was already living on my own and a I knew, that almost all grown ups were jerks and had no clue of the most important matters of life. I remember how I really scared and anoyed the dads of some girls that I went out with

But today I am amased and scared of the many bad decisions and lack of guts that I showed myself when life became a little more complicated during the next 20 years...

mirk wrote:We were having trouble with the material we were using, particularly with molding it to the shape we wanted it. I found one with very similar properties, that I had seen molded well in a few applications, and I though it might be applicable in this situation and solve our problem although I hadn't seen it in this specific application before. As an intern, I obviously don't claim to understand all of the cost and other restrictions, my issue with the situation was that it was dismissed so quickly and without explanation. I would have really liked to understand why it wouldn't work for that application, if that was the case.

Mirk: What I think happened is your boss and crew were in a state of "OH SHIT WE ARE HUMPED" and when your in that mode the problem solving extends way past the part or material, call it a triage. Is a mode where only 100% certainty of a beneficial outcome will be accepted even if a 90% one is offered by a Ghod.

Hmm, now that I think about it this way, it may have been part of the story. I don't think it was a full blown triage situation, but they did have to work on separate parts of the process, and likely didn't have time to review my work. Thanks for the explanation!

What I've heard from older designers and engineers many times over, is that they intentionally hire young people to push this kind of thing because as they get older they get more stuck in their ways. I figured I'd give a view of the same situation from the lower end, but I guess I'm lucky enough to not have an example after all